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India on Dandi March 2005

A Miniature Sheet consisting of 4 nos of postage stamps on the 75th Anniversary of the Salt Satyagraha :

Issued byIndia

Issued onApr 5, 2005

Type :Miniature Sheet, Mint Condition

Colour :Multicolour

Denomination :500 Paiseeach

Print Quantity :0.8 Million each

Miniature Sheets :0.1 Million

Printing Process :Photogravure

Printer :IndiaSecurity Press, Nashik

About :

“As the march continued, as days broke into dawn and dawn ripened into dusk, we saw before our very eyes the history of the world changing. We saw the whole of India rising up with rekindled enthusiasm and faith.“ – Sarojini Naidu

Dandi March was one of the most inspiring chapters in the history of the Indian freedom struggle. Although every political act of Mahatma Gandhi was rich in symbolism, Dandi March was an outstanding example as it fired a people to believe collectively as a nation and to come together on a common platform.

Mahatma Gandhi believed firmly in opposing all that was morally unjustifiable, and he would, in his own inimitable way, give expression to such a protest. His opposition to the Salt Tax imposed by the British, was thus elemental and yet effective in rousing the nation. Announcing the decision to launch the Salt Satyagraha, Gandhiji wrote to Lord Irwin, the Viceroy of India, “I regard this Tax (on salt) to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint. As the independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.“ The Salt Satyagraha was a masterstroke in political mobilization which also conclusively established that civil disobedience, as a means to achieve freedom was a viable political medium.

On March 12, 1930, Gandhiji started the historic march from Sabarmati Ashram with 78 volunteers to Dandi on the GujaratCoast. The 25-day long march through dusty and muddy tracks, sometimes through knee-deep waters, culminated on April 6, 1930. Gandhiji picked up a small lump of natural salt, thereby giving the signal to hundreds of thousands of people to similarly defy the law, since the British exercised a monopoly on the production and sale of salt. This was the beginning of the civil disobedience movement. Gandhiji had said in the Young India, “I know that the Salt Tax has to go and many other things with it.“